Bhutan monarch treks across mountains in a bid to keep fatality low

The impact of the 41-year-old king's excursions are evident in a Covid-19 death toll of just one for the nation nestled between India and China in the Eastern Himalayas.

Wearing a baseball cap and knee-length traditional Gho robe, carrying a backpack, Bhutan’s king has walked through jungles infested with leeches and snakes, trekked mountains and quarantined several times in a hotel in the capital.

For 14 months, King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, has been travelling by foot, car and horse to remote hamlets to oversee measures to protect his tiny kingdom of 700,000 from the coronavirus outbreak that has flared up in neighbouring India.

The impact of the 41-year-old king’s excursions are evident in a Covid-19 death toll of just one for the nation nestled between India and China in the